This is why people don't like you. You still aren't taking responsibility. You aren't some righteous crusader for truth. You are just some pissed off kid who who passive aggressively rants on the internet when things don't go his way. Be a man and stop blaming everyone else. Is this what you are going to do for the rest of your life when you face problems, rant on the internet?

P.S. I was going to stop reading this post until you directed your ranting at me. Now I am here to stay.

shoeshine wrote:This is why people don't like you. You still aren't taking responsibility. You aren't some righteous crusader for truth. You are just some pissed off kid who who passive aggressively rants on the internet when things don't go his way. Be a man and stop blaming everyone else. Is this what you are going to do for the rest of your life when you face problems, rant on the internet?

First of all, "Wall of Douchy text"? Seriously? How about you actually read that text, you mentally retarded chimpanzee. You might find that it actually addresses some of your severe misunderstandings about the situation, which you moronically repeat in your subsequent post.

Second of all, who doesn't like me? Who claimed I was a "righteous crusader for truth"? And what exactly is "passive aggressive" about posting pictures showing how ugly my school is? You clearly don't know the facts of the situation.

The bizarre thing is that even if I were to grant your wildly bizarre understanding of events, it's still difficult to understand your angle here. According to you, the crappy facilities, which I've gone to the trouble of photographing and posting, the forced purchase of an overpriced laptop (which would have been state-of-the-art in 1989), the incompetent LW and PP adjuncts, the massive student protest and consequent mid-semester curriculum change--you're saying that all of these supernumerary failings of UMN Law are actually my way of "blaming everyone else," and failing to "take responsibility"? Non sequitur anyone? Or to put it in parlance that you might understand: WTF?

I mean, by your reasoning, no one who has any particular reason for disliking something has a right to make general criticisms about it. In what kind of a world does this make any sense at all? Actually, my describing the ExamSoft kerfuffle was probably the best thing for you UMN defenders, because the very instant I mentioned it, you petty, small-minded little insects seized upon the fact like ravenous little maggots upon a corpse. "Aha," you declared. "Now we know why he's really upset with the school. It has nothing to do with fact that the place is falling apart, that it's laden with ancient, obsolete infrastructure, that the LW and PP adjuncts are brain-dead bottom-feeders of the MN legal profession, that an unacceptably high number of alumni are unemployed after graduation. Nope, none of that matters. The only thing we heard was the ExamSoft thing. None of the other stuff even registers."

And then you proceed to give me unsolicited "life advice." "Take responsibility"? "Be a man"? Who the hell are you, anyway? I mean, really. Why do you care what I do or don't take responsibility for? How exactly am I even supposed to take responsibility for doing exactly what the school told me to do, and then getting screwed anyway? What did I do wrong there, hm? And even if I did anything wrong, why are you so obsessed with me "manning up" and "taking responsibility" for it? And ultimately, what does that have to do with the fact that it's an ugly school with a terrible program and abysmal placement record?

You strike me is as a borderline unbearable human being with your evident inability to absorb new facts, to make conceptual distinctions, and nosing into other people's business. I mean, it boggles my mind what kind of a person goes cruising around the internet, preaching to people about how to "be a man," and to "take responsibility" for events beyond their control. I mean, never minding the fact that your "suggestions" are totally inappropriate in a case where I did everything that was my "responsibility," and never minding the sentiment underlying your post implying that people who've suffered injustices ought to just disappear lest they annoy you, and never minding the fact that you seem to be intellectually incapable of actually understanding the situation here--it remains the case that your preoccupation with my personal motivations for posting here is simply creepy to an unbelievable extent. I mean, you are a seriously disturbed person, who goes around telling strangers on the internet about how to be more responsible for their lives.

But that ain't the creepiest part of all. This is:

shoeshine wrote:P.S. I was going to stop reading this post until you directed your ranting at me. Now I am here to stay.

Okay. Like I said. You seem to be a pretty severely unbalanced person. Hope you get the help you need.

I have no qualms with your crusade to enlighten future students...But at what point do you stop repeating? I saw this thread bumped, initially by you, saying the school still sucks..... I was expecting some new TTTT shit out of Minnesota .... But then it seems you copied and pasted the same details youve posted many times, in different threads.

Every time you explain yourself it just gets worse. Stop explaining to me your problems! I have read your explanation...you just come off like a whiny little narcissist. I am really surprised none of your classmates have stood up to you in this thread. You literally set out to prove that UM is a terrible place but the only evidence you have provided is utterly trivial examples of your OCD like attention to the shortcomings that are present at every law school. Truly you are trying to fulfill your own hypothesis with this evidence. You want so badly to believe that UM is the reason you are unhappy and unsuccessful.

Daniel, you are unhappy because of you. It is not your law school's fault.

That's great... You derive pleasure posting on the Internet, antagonizing people you don't know/making personal attacks - agreed this dude is about to cross the informative line/may have already but honestly.... Who the fuck do you think you are?

nucky thompson wrote:I have no qualms with your crusade to enlighten future students...But at what point do you stop repeating? I saw this thread bumped, initially by you, saying the school still sucks..... I was expecting some new TTTT shit out of Minnesota .... But then it seems you copied and pasted the same details youve posted many times, in different threads.

Well... not in different threads. I've posted almost exclusively on two threads--both in the "Ask a Law Student /Graduate" section. And there was no copy/pasting, although a lot of the information is recycled stuff. I actually do have a number of additional stories of TTT in Minnesota, but am for various reasons not at liberty to repeat them here. Perhaps after I've secured my diploma, I'll come back with an update.

Yeah, there is admittedly a lot of repetition, but it's largely the function of people like shoeshine failing to get it the first time around. I think it's actually coming time for me to consider retiring from TLS. Also, I just have a lot of other obligations, and I'm inclined to agree that it's getting a tad repetitive.

shoeshine wrote:Every time you explain yourself it just gets worse. Stop explaining to me your problems! I have read your explanation...you just come off like a whiny little narcissist. I am really surprised none of your classmates have stood up to you in this thread. You literally set out to prove that UM is a terrible place but the only evidence you have provided is utterly trivial examples of your OCD like attention to the shortcomings that are present at every law school. Truly you are trying to fulfill your own hypothesis with this evidence. You want so badly to believe that UM is the reason you are unhappy and unsuccessful.

I'm guessing you're a 0L. You sound like a 0L.

Well, once again, it seems that language has failed to penetrate your thick skull. How about we do it like this. Answer yes/no to the following six questions.

(1) Do other law schools have this?

(2) Do you think that a 5 minute boot up time is reasonable for a $1250 computer?

(3) Can you name any other law school that changed its grading policy mid-semester, because of widespread student complaints and threats of a walk-out?

(4) Do you think that a school changing its curriculum mid-semester is sign of a competent administration?

(5) If you were a competent, intelligent professional, would you agree to teach a section on "Professionalism" or "Legal Writing," as an adjunct, reading 80 drafts about two made-up problems for $2000/year and no perks?

(6) Do you think that it's honest reporting practice to claim 99% alumni employment 9 months after graduation, when 10% of those "employed" alumni are hired by the law school to do part-time remedial work on par with manual labor at minimum wage?

Mr. 3.14 hates ad hominem attacks so much that he peppers all his posts with hilariously exaggerated name calling.

For the millionth billionth time. An ad hominem attack is a form of fallacious argumentation. It goes like this:

1. X claims that Catholic schools should not be required to provide coverage for birth control pills as a part of its student health care package. 2. X provides supporting arguments a, b, and c.3. Y counters that X is himself a Catholic and a man.4. Therefore, X cannot be right.

This is an ad hominem fallacy, because Y has, rather than addressing X's arguments, simply attacked X's credibility to make the argument. However, since the merit of X's claim is presented in a, b, and c, credibility is more-or-less a non-issue here. X is not asking us to believe assertions. He's providing arguments for his position. So in this situation, attacking X's credibility is fallacious. It has no bearing whatever on whether a, b, and c are valid. What is wanted is counterargument explaining why a, b, and c fail. Undermining X does nothing, since the assertion stands on a, b, and c.

Another example. Suppose that Smith has acalculia. And suppose that Smith claims that 2+2=4, because 2+1=3, and 3+1=4, and by substitution, we get 2+1+1=4, and 1+1=2, therefore 2+2=4. An ad hominem attack might go thusly: Smith has acalculia, therefore Smith can't do math, therefore he must be wrong when he claims that 2+2=4, and therefore 2+2≠4. It doesn't really matter how Smith was able to give a good explanation, despite having acalculia (he might have memorized the explanation), the point is that his cognitive inability to perform arithmetic functions is the reason we say he has acalculia. We can't infer that the arithmetic calculations he does make are wrong because he has acalculia--that's getting the inference backwards. At an absolute minimum, he could've gotten the right answers by coincidence! There is no reason why a person afflicted with acalculia couldn't produce correct arithmetic assertions from time to time. Therefore, attempting to undermine his arguments by pointing to the fact that he has acalculia is an ad hominem argument.

So, what is the point? The point is that ad hominemis not the same thing as name calling, you dolt. And I'm sick of morons thinking that ad hominem is just a fancy way of saying "name-calling." Yes, it's true that ad hominem fallacies tend very frequently to involve putting someone down, but to be an actual ad hominem fallacy, the put-downs need to be premises in a fallacious argument. The foul is not being impolite; the foul is failed inference. Simply calling someone an unflattering nameis not, I repeat, IS NOT an ad hominem fallacy. Dig? An ad hominem attack is a form of fallacious argumentation. Name-calling is not argumentation, much less fallacious argumentation. To repeat: AD HOMINEM ≠ NAME CALLING!!!

I mean, if all that ad hominem meant were name-calling, then why wouldn't we just call it "name-calling," rather than trotting out a Latin term? Criminy. Fucking kids these days. If you don't know what the words mean, then either look them up or don't use them--take your pick.

geoduck wrote:Oh, and FWIW, I've never visited a public university that didn't have shit chained up left and right.

Then post pictures. Seriously, I am so sick of the argument that UMN is not bad, because other schools have the same problems. Firstly, they don't. Every other school I've ever seen looks like a freaking utopian garden compared to the utter garbage heap that is UMN. Secondly, if you think otherwise, then post your own goddamn pictures.

And with that, I'm officially retiring from TLS. I'm far too busy to keep teaching basic logical inference to people insisting on trotting out Latin terms they don't understand, and this is too far afield of the intended topic. And on the intended topic, there's plenty of information here already for anyone interested. For reference, I believe it's page 3 of this thread where you'll find the photos of the school. Somewhere else, you'll find a youtube link of a video of the school-issued laptop booting up. I've provided numerous undisputed facts about the school, which you can find scattered throughout the thread, if you are contemplating attending this total joke of a law school.

To summarize: there's been an extraordinary number of fallacious arguments (ad hominem and otherwise) offered to counter the evidence I've provided. For the most part, it boils down to either one of four categories:

(1) Other schools aren't that much better;(2) The crappiness of the school is endurable;(3) The physical condition of the school is secondary to the quality of the curriculum; (4) You're just angry because the school personally screwed you.

I've given perfectly sound responses to these retarded rebuttals, which I've more-or-less had to repeat each time some moronic UMN-defender has ambled along to repeat some variation or other of these "defenses":

(1) I've given lists of things that are uniquely bad about UMN. That is, they are problems that other schools do not also suffer (show me another school that has a bare electrical wire dangling out of a hole in the cement ceiling of a classroom, and I'll gladly retract this).

(2) People who have extraordinarily high tolerances for crappy environments are not really denying the crappiness of the environment, but rather attesting to their idiosyncratically high tolerance. Good for them. Since I have provided a large quantity of objective documentation about what the environment is actually like, such subjective assessments, however valuable in other contexts, sort of go by the wayside. Looking at a picture of a garbage heap and telling other people that it's not such a bad garbage heap doesn't really add any information. They're looking at the picture of the garbage heap, and they can judge for themselves. To repeat, the pictures of the garbage heap that is UMN can be found on page 3 of this thread. When people say it's "not that bad," it is therefore a little puzzling how they expect this to be on point, given that you're looking at a picture of a thing that is that bad, and no one has ever claimed that these photos were tampered with or otherwise illegitimate.

(3) You can find scattered throughout this thread repeated comments from UMN apologists that the physical disrepair of the school is secondary to the strength of its curriculum. While I have never denied that the faculty is excellent, the curriculum is utterly ruined by the incompetent administrators. I've given numerous facts supporting this position. On this point, some people have tried to combine rebuttals of the category (1) and (3) types, claiming that the problems with UMN's curriculum are just as bad at other schools. This is simply not the case. The simplest example is that last year, UMN had to change a required 1L course from graded to P/F after threats of walk-outs and widespread student protest. I've never heard of any other school changing its core curriculum grading policy mid-semester, due to student outrage. So there's something that is (a) unique to UMN, (b) not related to the physical dilapidation of the school, and (c) pretty goddamn significant evidence of incompetent administration. Note: Some people have had the audacity to suggest that this is actually a good thing, since it shows that the admin is listening to the students. This suggestion is retarded. Why? It gives credit to the admin for remedying their colosal blunder in the face of nearly unanimous student and faculty complaints. They chose to change the curriculum mid-semester, because this was less bad than the alternative. They made a totally idiotic decision in the first place, and then they chose a remedy that merely mitigated the badness of their decision--you don't get points for this! Indeed, the school's policies, from the required laptops to signing-up-for-classes, is almost entirely devoid of common sense at every step--there is not a single policy that couldn't be significantly improved by some straightforward and obvious changes. I truly believe that the administrators of the school suffer from severe cognitive disabilities--this is not hyperbole, I actually, honestly, truly believe that the deans of this "fair" institution must be mentally handicapped. One look at the "student handbook," and I'm sure any reasonable person would agree.

(4) Here's where the ad hominem comes into play. Even granting that I am miffed that the school screwed me personally, I've bounced back just fine (I got another 3.8 last Fall, and this time I got two "book awards." Note: a "book award" is given to the one student with the highest score in a course), and despite my rebounding nicely from the procedural injustices I suffered first semester, I still continue to think that the school sucks. Indeed, my thinking that the school sucks has very little to do with my being personally screwed at this point, although I think it is yet-more-evidence of a severely incompetent administration. Moreover, I thought the school sucked before it personally screwed me. And there are a large number of students who weren't personally screwed, who also think that the school sucks. And even if that weren't enough, I've actually pointed to undisputed facts about the school, and provided physical documentation to back up my claims. When I claimed that the $1275 computer (which UMN forces us to purchase at a huge markup) is slow and buggy, I videotaped it booting up (it took more than five minutes to get past the "Welcome" screen and load MS Word). When I claimed that the place was crumbling to rubble, and someone disagreed, I provided photographs of the place. Even if I had a personal axe to grind, such vendetta would hardly make a lick of difference. I wasn't claiming that the school is broken and falling apart, I showed the school, broken and falling apart. Some idiot claiming that the admin are "not completely incompetent" is offering a subjective assessment. The fact that they screwed up so badly that they had to change their grading policy mid-semester due widespread dissatisfaction among students and faculty is not a subjective assessment. It's what happened! When people ask you to discount facts, on the basis that the purveyor of those facts has an interest in purveying those facts, then that is a classic ad hominem fallacy.

To conclude: I wish the 0Ls the best of luck in their applications. I hope that my efforts at warning you about UMN Law have proved helpful and informative. I certainly wish that someone had given me this information when I was a 0L--it would have saved me from making the biggest mistake of my life. I can't say as I regret anything quite so much as I regret coming to UMN Law--and that's no exaggeration. My goal here has been imply to put information out there that might be helpful to prospective students. It bugs me to no end that a handful of people, blinded by "school pride," have felt the need to come here to obfuscate and confuse issues in order to "save the sullied name" of UMN Law. At any rate, UMN Law been the single worst experience of my life, thanks to an unfathomably incompetent group of administrators. If you're thinking about coming here, I really cannot stress strongly enough what a huge mistake that would be. It certainly was for me. Here's hoping you won't have to go through it yourselves, or if you do, then here's hoping it's not quite as horrible for you as it's been for me.

And with that, finding all foes thoroughly vanquished, I officially retire from TLS.

beachbum wrote:So... Minnesota people: are you all aware of this dude's ranting? Is he outed around the school? Would love to know how this thread is playing over at UM.

We know exactly who he is. He didn't really attempt to hide it if you know basic math. Mostly, people point to it every once in a while and giggle.

Most of us would agree that this place should be in better repair, but not all of us hate the brutalist architecture. Also, the administration has taken a bunch of steps to fix several of the things he had the most problems with, such as requiring the Dean of Students to sign off before the tech guys can fix ExamSoft issues after the magic week. Also, the Practice and Professionalism course has gotten significantly better (even the small-section adjuncts said that last year was crap) but still has a ways to go. It's very much a developing program which will probably be excellent for practical experience in, say, 5-10 years.

Would it be completely ridiculous to live out in the Orono area and commute to law school via park and rides? I have the opportunity to live in a house that is super nice, utilities and garage included, virtually for free. If I plan on studying at home anyways, would commuting be feasible or just too much of a hassle?

Yea, the building kind of sucks. It's old and terribly dated. Oh well. Big deal. From a practical standpoint it really didn't affect anyone's learning experience, as far as I can tell. Some of the smaller classrooms used for legal writing and clinics actually have sunny views of downtown, but they are in the newer part of the building and, typically, one doesn't get to take classes in them until 3L year.

Minneapolis is a great city. Sure, it can get kind of cold, but so can everywhere in the midwest. Great canoeing, camping, some hiking, etc... are all within an hour or two from the city. It's affordable. There are plenty of great restaurants and things to do on the weekends. It's incredibly safe for a mid-sized city, and doesn't suffer from urban blight that comparably sized places such as Cleveland or St. Louis do.

Culturally, it's more akin to Seattle than most midwestern cities. It's very green, and everyone rides bikes everywhere. The city parks are amazing.

Classmates are far, far, less competitive than how I understand they are at most law schools. There's comradarie. I met lots of great people, both from MN and from elsewhere, that were supportive and actively helped each other get jobs/internships/whatever. I got a summer job that way.

Ultimately, my point is: the only people who complain about the building are the ones who are spending way too much time in it and are otherwise dissatisfied. It's common knowledge the building sucks, but there's no reason to be there if you can study effectively at home. Even if you can't, there's never any reason to be at school past 7 or 8 at night. That time will be in the library (note: all of the study rooms have windows), doing work, not futzing around admiring the ductwork or hanging out in an atrium. I mean, really: who the hell wants to hang out at law school, anyway? When you're there: work. When you're done: leave. Problem solved. If you need a beautiful environment to be productive or happy, you're probably in the wrong profession.

There are a lot of good things about UMN, the building just isn't one of them.

Oh, and ExamSoft is annoying, but in my 3 years there I only encountered one person who got screwed by it. They send reminders, and your friends (assuming you have some) never fail to remind you to do it because the alternative (hand-writing exams) sucks so much. ExamSoft also tells you to test the program to make sure it works. Assuming you pay attention to the instructions, there's no chance of messing it up.

But, you know, if I forgot to read the instructions, I'd be bitter too.

Just wondering if anyone can shed some light on why UMN has such a large amount of unknown salaries/jobs (getting info from LST - it is kind of scary seeing that and it makes it difficult to see how people are really doing in the jobs market.

mrjohnsterman wrote:Just wondering if anyone can shed some light on why UMN has such a large amount of unknown salaries/jobs (getting info from LST - it is kind of scary seeing that and it makes it difficult to see how people are really doing in the jobs market.

No idea beyond the obvious "people don't feel like reporting."

The job market here is pretty rough, no denying it. Contrary to that fellow's pronouncement above, however, I'm positive that more than 20% of the class had full-time legal employment after graduation. Employment % is a constant conversation topic while in school and beyond, and it's often hard to gauge because people who have jobs at UMN are usually pretty hesitant to say so for fear of appearing insensitive.

I'd say that about 40%-50% of the class had something permanent lined up at graduation, with about 75% of the class having something 9 months out. That's real jobs and clerkships, not glorified clerk positions or post-grad-fellowship things that some people had to settle for as a stop-gap (hey, better than nothing). Almost all of my friends have something long-term lined up, and the vast majority (really only one or two exceptions) seem to be happy where they are for now.

Keep in mind that 3 years from now, these will be remembered as the dark days.